The present invention relates generally to systems and methods for personal customization of digital content, as purchased from various digital content providers, and delivered to or consumed on various digital content devices. More particularly, the present invention relates to a hosted server system for generating customized gift message files based on user input and further generating file wrappers for use by content providers in selectively executing the gift message files alongside the associated digital content.
Consumers are beginning to keep more of their digital content “in the cloud”, and stream it as needed. Downloads occur incrementally and on-demand. In one example, iTunes users are gaining the ability to buy content without downloading it. All they are really doing is acquiring the right to stream it to some device whenever they want it. In another example, book publisher O'Reilly & Associates provides “in-the-cloud” access to any item in their collection for a single monthly fee. Any book can be opened, and single pages are downloaded.
In another example, a Kindle book purchased from Amazon can be downloaded to any of the customer's Kindle-capable devices: Kindle, iPhone, desktop computer. If a new Kindle device is purchased, then this same Kindle book can be downloaded to the new device as well. The same purchased license applies to the same customer-content combination on all devices. Similarly, the customer can open the book and read to page 123 on one device, and then upon opening the book on another device the book will automatically open to page 123. Amazon's database associates the customer's location in the book with their license for the book. And that information is available to all of their devices associated with that account.
Most digital content providers operate a system which passes messages and maintains a transactional database containing descriptions of their content catalog, their customer account information, and their order history. The most practical and accepted means to transform a “customer order” into a “content access” is usually with transactions stored in their customer-facing database.
Permanence of the data which defines digital content customizations is achieved by identifying this as attributes of the content purchase. If the provider's user agent (web page, application, or the like) is used to describe a personal inscription on a purchase designated as a gift, the attributes of the inscription (inscription page template identification number, message text, customer-uploaded photo, etc.) become as much a part of the purchase as the purchasing customer's account number, content catalog identification number, purchase data, etc. Such transactions become part of the provider's “customer history” and exist forever, barring catastrophic data loss.
Similarly, user customizations such as inscriptions, dedications, gift-wrappings, and any other personalizations applied to the content are ideally handled by the content providers. The information which describes them will pass through their system along with customer orders in the form of data fields attributed to transactions, and passed as messages or stored in databases along with other data concerning the customer-license-content association.
Identified this way, any subsequent use of customization information, regardless of how it is actually implemented or rendered, may fall within the scope of the present invention. For example, the inscription may be made into a special page that is embedded in the downloaded file.
As another example, the inscription may be displayed by way of clicking a button on the web browser page being used by the customer to read the book “in the cloud.”
As yet another example, the inscription may be transformed during its lifetime into EPUB, PDF, HTML, or WXYZ, within the scope of the present invention with respect to each instance.
As yet another example, the inscription may become a bit of leader video at the start of a movie further within the scope of the present invention, regardless of video format, or whether it was downloaded or streamed.
Similarly, indications of content customization given in the customer's collection display (“bookshelf,” “cover flow browser,” etc.) would be instantiations of the idea. While the details of the display might change (“little red bow at the top left corner” becomes “small gold star at the bottom right corner”), the idea that remains constant is of indicating in such a display that some customization of this content exists in this collection.